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Reviews

Review of Overtones

Overtones

Wu Wei & Wang Li

Harmonia Mundi

Rating: ★★★★

It's perhaps a measure of the subtlety of the music that the liner notes to this new addition to Harmonia...

Reviewed in issue November/2016

Review of Ragas & Talas/India's Master Musician

Ragas & Talas/India's Master Musician

Ravi Shankar

Minuet Records

Rating: ★★★★

This double album presents two of the earliest releases of the late sitar legend Ravi Shankar. Ragas & Talas was...

Reviewed in issue November/2016

Review of Khmer Rouge Survivors: They Will Kill You, If You Cry

Khmer Rouge Survivors: They Will Kill You, If You Cry

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Glitterbeat Records

Rating: ★★★

This third release in Glitterbeat's Hidden Musics series, produced by Ian Brennan, features some remarkable Cambodian musicians who survived the...

Reviewed in issue October/2016

Review of Afghan Rubab with Songbirds

Afghan Rubab with Songbirds

Ustad Rahim Khushnawaz

Top of the World

Felmay

Rating: ★★★★

Rahim Khushnawaz (c1947-2011) was one of the great rubab players of Afghanistan. But he comes from Herat rather than Kabul,...

Reviewed in issue October/2016

Review of The Fluid Piano

The Fluid Piano

Utsav Lal

Fluid Piano Recordings

Rating: ★★★★

It certainly sounds like a piano. But not as you know it. Against a drone of tambura, pianist Utsav Lal...

Reviewed in issue October/2016

Review of The Voice of the Tantra

The Voice of the Tantra

The Monastery of Gyütö

Ocora Radio France (2 CDs)

Rating: ★★★★★

When I travelled to Tibet in 2005 to record liturgical music, many monasteries were in ruins after their destruction during...

Reviewed in issue July/2016

Review of Sunda Country: The Art of the Gamelan Degung

Sunda Country: The Art of the Gamelan Degung

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Ocora Radio France

Rating: ★★★

Gamelan degung is one of the smaller types of gamelan ensembles. This disc, recorded between 1972 and 1973, features two...

Reviewed in issue July/2016

Review of Yeominrok

Yeominrok

E-Do

Pony Canyon

Rating: ★★★

Although ostensibly a fusion outfit, the South Korean quintet E-Do still sound predominantly traditional in their plundering. Two percussionists and...

Reviewed in issue July/2016

Review of Ahimsa: Love is the Weapon of the Brave

Ahimsa: Love is the Weapon of the Brave

Arohi Ensemble

Innova Records

Rating: ★★★★

Musicians from Kolkata, Los Angeles and Caracas – among them, three disciples of the late sitar legend Ravi Shankar –...

Reviewed in issue July/2016

Review of Néo

Néo

Kaoru Watanabe

Watanabekaoru

Rating: ★★★★

The title of this recording, the first album of original compositions by Japanese-American instrumentalist Kaoru Watanabe, can loosely be translated...

Reviewed in issue July/2016

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